Thursday, June 30, 2011

OMNI $COSTS$ OF WARS NEWSLETTER #3, June 30, 2011,Compiled by Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace.(Newsletter #1 January 14, 2011; #2 April 5, 2011).

Contents of #1

Books

Letter by Gladys

Code Pink: End the Wars

Robert Higgs

Daniel Ellsberg

Barney Frank and Ron Paul

More

Contents of #2

Warfare or Health Care?

How Much You Paid for the Wars

5 Myths of Military $$

From Military-Industrial Complex to Permanent War

War Resisters League Pie Chart

Contents of #3

Costs Per Taxpayer

$One Trillion President Obama?How About $4 Trillion?

Medea Benjamin:Costs of Endless Wars

Leaving Afghanistan?No.

Senator Tester: Reduce Military Budget

Congressional Progressive Caucus Budget

Costs To Taxpayers

The US is building $15 billion aircraft carriers that could be sunk with Chinese missiles that cost $10 million, Time Magazine reports. As a result, the Navy's $15 billion aircraft carriers could be useless in any future conflict over Taiwan. Aircraft carriers are increasingly obsolete platforms of war, Time says. Yet the Navy continues to churn them out as if it were still 1942.

While the U.S.'s military spending has jumped from $1,500 per capita in 1998 to $2,700 in 2008, its NATO allies have been spending $500 per person over the same span, Time says. As long as the U.S. is overspending on its defense, it lets its allies skimp on theirs and instead pour the savings into infrastructure, education and health care. So even as U.S. taxpayers fret about their health care costs, their tax dollars are paying for a military that is subsidizing the health care of their European allies.

$1 trillion in cuts would still leave the Pentagon fatter than it was before 9/11, Time notes.

“Cost of War $3.7 Trillion and Counting, 258,000 Dead”

hen President Barack Obama cited cost as a reason to bring troops home from Afghanistan, he referred to a $1 trillion price tag for America's wars.

Staggering as it is, that figure grossly underestimates the total cost of wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan to the US Treasury and ignores more imposing costs yet to come, according to a study released on Wednesday.

The final bill will run at least $3.7 trillion and could reach as high as $4.4 trillion, according to the research project "Costs of War" by Brown University's Watson Institute for International Studies (http://www.costsofwar.org/).

In the 10 years since US troops went into Afghanistan to root out the al Qaeda leaders behind the September 11, 2001, attacks, spending on the conflicts totaled $2.3 trillion to $2.7 trillion.

Those numbers will continue to soar when considering often overlooked costs such as long-term obligations to wounded veterans and projected war spending from 2012 through 2020. The estimates do not include at least $1 trillion more in interest payments coming due and many billions more in expenses that cannot be counted, according to the study.

The White House says the total amount appropriated for war-related activities of the Department of Defense, intelligence and State Department since 2001 is about $1.3 trillion, and that would rise to nearly $1.4 trillion in 2012.

Researchers with the Watson Institute say that type of accounting is common but too narrow to measure the real costs.

In human terms, 224,000 to 258,000 people have died directly from warfare, including 125,000 civilians in Iraq. Many more have died indirectly, from the loss of clean drinking water, healthcare, and nutrition. An additional 365,000 have been wounded and 7.8 million people - equal to the combined population of Connecticut and Kentucky - have been displaced.

"Costs of War" brought together more than 20 academics to uncover the expense of war in lives and dollars, a daunting task given the inconsistent recording of lives lost and what the report called opaque and sloppy accounting by the US Congress and the Pentagon.

The report underlines the extent to which war will continue to stretch the US federal budget, which is already on an unsustainable course due to an aging American population and skyrocketing healthcare costs.

It also raises the question of what the United States gained from its multitrillion-dollar investment.

"I hope that when we look back, whenever this ends, something very good has come out of it," Senator Bob Corker, a Republican from Tennessee, told Reuters in Washington.

September 11, 2001: The Damage Continues

In one sense, the report measures the cost of 9/11, the American shorthand for the events of September 11, 2001. Nineteen hijackers plus other al Qaeda plotters spent an estimated $400,000 to $500,000 on the plane attacks that killed 2,995 people and caused $50 billion to $100 billion in economic damages.

What followed were three wars in which $50 billion amounts to a rounding error. For every person killed on September 11, another 73 have been killed since.

Was it worth it? That is a question many people want answered, said Catherine Lutz, head of the anthropology department at Brown and co-director of the study.

"We decided we needed to do this kind of rigorous assessment of what it cost to make those choices to go to war," she said. "Politicians, we assumed, were not going to do that kind of assessment."

The report arrives as Congress debates how to cut a US deficit projected at $1.4 trillion this year, roughly a 10th of which can be attributed to direct war spending.

What did the United States gain for its trillions?

Strategically, the results for the United States are mixed. Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein are dead, but Iraq and Afghanistan are far from stable democracies. Iran has gained influence in the Gulf and the Taliban, though ousted from government, remain a viable military force in Afghanistan.

"The United States has been extremely successful in protecting the homeland," said George Friedman, founder of STRATFOR, a US-based intelligence company.

"Al Qaeda in Afghanistan was capable of mounting very sophisticated, complex, operations on an intercontinental basis. That organization with that capability has not only been substantially reduced, it seems to have been shattered," Friedman said.

Economically, the results are also mixed. War spending may be adding half a percentage point a year to growth in the gross domestic product but that has been more than offset by the negative effects of deficit spending, the report concludes.

SHORTEN THE FOLLOWING

“Endless War and Empire”

eath and taxes are the only certainties in life. And these days, they go hand in hand.

While our fiscal woes have led Congress to slash food aid this year to the world's poor - rest assured, fellow Americans - the US government will keep using your tax dollars to kill them. For while John Boehner and Barack Obama might disagree on some things, there's one area they can agree on: War. And the need for more of it.

"Money for bombs, not bread," might be a good bipartisan slogan.

And when it comes to dropping its citizens' tax dollars on flying killer robots and foreign military occupations, no country comes close to the United States. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), the cost of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq - more than $150 billion in direct spending this year alone - exceeds what China, the US's closest military rival, spends altogether on its armed forces. Overall, the Obama administration will spend more than $700 billion next year on the military.

That's more than George W. Bush ever spent. And figures released this week by SIPRI show that since Obama took office, the US has been almost entirely responsible for the global rise in military spending: $19.6 billion of $20.6 billion since 2008. What a difference a Nobel laureate makes.

And the actual figure spent on war – the fighting of it, the preparation for it and the consequences of it – is substantially higher than acknowledged, with spending on military programs often buried in places like the Department of Energy, which oversees the US's massive stash of nuclear weapons. Counting those hidden costs, including veterans benefits, aid to foreign militaries and interest payments on defense-related debt, economist Robert Higgs estimates the US government spends more than $1 trillion a year on empire.

But you wouldn't grasp the enormity of the US's commitment to militarism if you listened to its politicians. Remarking last week on the deal he struck that slashes $38.5 billion in federal spending, President Obama said the agreement "between Democrats and Republicans, on behalf of all Americans, is on a budget that invests in our future while making the largest annual spending cut in our history."

Sounds lovely. But the reality, not the rhetoric, is that Obama and his allies in Congress aren't cutting Pentagon waste and investing in rainbows and unicorns – unless, perhaps, there's some way to harness their power for weapons. Rather, they're investing in war at the cost of community health centers, local development projects and Medicare. In Washington, you see, money for killing people is safe from the cutting board; it's the money that actually helps them that's not.

"We will all need to make sacrifices," Obama reiterated in his speech on the national debt this week - just not the Pentagon, which is guaranteed more money every year under this president's watch. "I will never accept cuts that compromise our ability to defend our homeland or America's interests around the world," Obama said. As for cuts to domestic spending, including to "programs that I care deeply about"? Well, that's a different story.

And if you're a US taxpayer, forget welfare programs: bombing and occupying countries that pose no credible threat to America - Obama has so far authorized attacks in at least six countries since taking office, including Yemen, Somalia and the latest and greatest $8.3-million-a-day war for peace, Libya - is your single greatest expense as a citizen. Indeed, over half of federal discretionary spending - what Americans will pay for with their incomes taxes on April 18 - goes to the armed forces and their legion of private contractors.

Now imagine what that money could do if it went to something more productive. Imagine if, instead of paying for bombs to be dropped around the world, those tax dollars went toward fulfilling actual human needs - toward creating friends, not enemies.

For the cost of just one minute of war we could build 16 new schools in Afghanistan. For 60 seconds of peace, we could fund 36 elementary school teachers here at home. This year's funding for the endless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan - $172.4 billion - could provide health care for 88.4 million poor American children.

The obvious wastefulness of war has even some politicians beginning to talk of investing in America instead of arms manufacturers. Congressmen Barney Frank and Ron Paul recently convened a task force that produced a detailed report with specific recommendations for cutting Pentagon spending by approximately $1 trillion over the next decade.

But lawmakers - all of whom have military contractors in their districts - rarely do anything good of their own volition. Rather, they have to be forced into action by those they purport to represent. At the local level, communities are doing just that by pressuring mayors to sign a resolution calling on Congress to redirect military spending to domestic priorities. A similar resolution, spearheaded by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, will be considered at the June meeting of the US Conference of Mayors.

Pressuring politicians is not the only route to affect change, of course. The War Resisters League, for instance, suggests principled civil disobedience: refusing to pay taxes to fund unjust wars. That route is fraught with risk, including the prospect of jail time, but it's one that would have made great Americans like Martin Luther King and Henry David Thoreau proud.

Not everyone can accept those risks, especially for those with families to worry about. But another option, living simply and reducing one's taxable income, has the added benefit of not just starving the warfare state, but curbing one's contribution to mindless consumerism and global climate change. And forgoing a new iPhone is a small price to pay to save a life.

Be it refusing to pay for war or speaking out against the injustice of bombing and killing poor people on the other side of the globe, the important thing is to recognize one's role in the war machine and commit to doing something about it - to quit complacently accepting the world as it is and to work toward making it what it should be. The greatest enabler of the military-industrial complex isn't really taxes: it's apathy.

Charles Davis has covered Congress for NPR and Pacifica stations across the country, and freelanced for the international news wire Inter Press Service, primarily covering US policy toward Latin America and the war on drugs in particular. He has also worked as a researcher for Michael Moore on his movie Capitalism: A Love Story.

NOT LEAVING AFGHANISTAN

[Significant analysis of war in Afghanistan and President Obama’s feeble plan for withdrawal.D]

“Bad News for a Country Tired of War “

Barack Obama’s plan for a limited withdrawal from Afghanistan means tens of thousands of American troops will remain there, many of them fighting, for several years to come.

In his speech Wednesday night, the president announced he will reduce the U.S. fighting force in Afghanistan by 10,000 by the end of this year and a total of 33,000 by September 2012. After that, he said, “our troops will be coming home at a steady pace as Afghan security forces move into the lead. Our mission will change from combat to support. By 2014, this process of transition will be complete. …”

Nowhere did he pledge that all the personnel would be brought home by that 2014 date.

Nor did he mention that 68,000 service personnel will remain in Afghanistan after September 2012. In addition, according to the Congressional Research Office, 18,919 “private security contractors” working for the Defense Department will also be serving in Afghanistan, performing duties seemingly indistinguishable from those done by American military personnel.

That means that after the pullout more than 86,000 personnel will remain engaged in fighting or the vague “support” duties cited by the president. They will add to the human and economic toll of a war that has killed, according to the website iCasualties, 1,632 American troops and wounded 11,191. The financial cost is now more than $426 billion. With the Iraq War added in, the figure reaches $1.2 trillion.

Although Obama’s speech was no cause for celebration, there were some pluses. The troop reduction was more substantial than the much smaller cuts advocated by outgoing Defense Secretary Robert Gates and the military command. Obama said the United States would negotiate with the Taliban if they “break from al-Qaida, abandon violence and abide by the Afghan constitution.” It’s doubtful that these conditions can be met, especially given the Taliban’s opposition to equal rights for women, part of the Afghan constitution. But at least we may be at the table with them.

Obama had a positive but not triumphal tone, saying the United States “is starting this drawdown from a position of strength.”

Actually, he is starting it from a position of weakness.

Although the war has been pretty much ignored by cable news and much of the rest of the mainstream media, apparently the American people have a different view.

Senator Jon Tester begins: "Today, the same politicians in the House of Representatives who claimed that tax cuts for the wealthy would 'pay for themselves' are insisting we take them seriously as they try to balance the budget. Their plan? To end Medicare as we know it, and other gimmicks like cutting basic health care for women."

We're in a very important moment. The budget plan for the next 10 years is being discussed and this will have huge implications for us all.

The Congressional Progressive Caucus has introduced a courageous and responsible budget plan called the People's Budget. By slashing military spending and taxing the rich, it would reduce the deficit by 4.7 trillion dollars in 10 years,provide resources for a jobs program and much needed infrastructure and protect medicare and social security.(See a great chart by the New Priorities Network comparing the People's Budget with those of Obama & GOP/Paul Ryan. You can also scroll to the bottom to take a one-question poll.)

At the same time, the House of Representatives will soon be voting on the Defense Appropriations Bill giving $530 billion to the Department of Defense and alotting $119 billion to continue the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

1.) Take Action Now by urging your representative to support the CPC's People's Budget and to vote NO on this bill:

2)This is the budget we've been waiting for! Forward this message to your friends and family and post a link to the action on Facebook. Spread the one-question poll far and wide!

3.) 2.) Make a phone call to your representative!

Congressional switchboard 877-762-8762 or 202-224-3121 You can use this simple script:

Please support the Congressional Progressive Caucus' People's Budget & vote against the 2012 Defense Appropriations Bill. We need to change our spending priorities. Help end the wars and bring needed funds back to our communities.

Let's work together to push for a budget that supports peace and economic growth for all!

Cost of War $3.7 Trillion and Counting, 258,000 Dead

By Daniel Trotta, Reuters

30 June 11

hen President Barack Obama cited cost as a reason to bring troops home from Afghanistan, he referred to a $1 trillion price tag for America's wars.

Staggering as it is, that figure grossly underestimates the total cost of wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan to the US Treasury and ignores more imposing costs yet to come, according to a study released on Wednesday.

The final bill will run at least $3.7 trillion and could reach as high as $4.4 trillion, according to the research project "Costs of War" by Brown University's Watson Institute for International Studies (http://www.costsofwar.org). [Dick's comment: Stiglitz and Bilmes in The Three Trillion Dollar War (2008) p. 31 estimate possibly "$5 trillion in total economic costs." More recently Stiglitz said he had underestimated the long-term medical costs of the veterans, and the wars would cost $4 to $6 trillion. ]

In the 10 years since US troops went into Afghanistan to root out the al Qaeda leaders behind the September 11, 2001, attacks, spending on the conflicts totaled $2.3 trillion to $2.7 trillion.

Those numbers will continue to soar when considering often overlooked costs such as long-term obligations to wounded veterans and projected war spending from 2012 through 2020. The estimates do not include at least $1 trillion more in interest payments coming due and many billions more in expenses that cannot be counted, according to the study.

The White House says the total amount appropriated for war-related activities of the Department of Defense, intelligence and State Department since 2001 is about $1.3 trillion, and that would rise to nearly $1.4 trillion in 2012.

Researchers with the Watson Institute say that type of accounting is common but too narrow to measure the real costs.

In human terms, 224,000 to 258,000 people have died directly from warfare, including 125,000 civilians in Iraq. Many more have died indirectly, from the loss of clean drinking water, healthcare, and nutrition. An additional 365,000 have been wounded and 7.8 million people - equal to the combined population of Connecticut and Kentucky - have been displaced.

"Costs of War" brought together more than 20 academics to uncover the expense of war in lives and dollars, a daunting task given the inconsistent recording of lives lost and what the report called opaque and sloppy accounting by the US Congress and the Pentagon.

The report underlines the extent to which war will continue to stretch the US federal budget, which is already on an unsustainable course due to an aging American population and skyrocketing healthcare costs.

It also raises the question of what the United States gained from its multitrillion-dollar investment.

"I hope that when we look back, whenever this ends, something very good has come out of it," Senator Bob Corker, a Republican from Tennessee, told Reuters in Washington.

September 11, 2001: The Damage Continues

In one sense, the report measures the cost of 9/11, the American shorthand for the events of September 11, 2001. Nineteen hijackers plus other al Qaeda plotters spent an estimated $400,000 to $500,000 on the plane attacks that killed 2,995 people and caused $50 billion to $100 billion in economic damages.

What followed were three wars in which $50 billion amounts to a rounding error. For every person killed on September 11, another 73 have been killed since.

Was it worth it? That is a question many people want answered, said Catherine Lutz, head of the anthropology department at Brown and co-director of the study.

"We decided we needed to do this kind of rigorous assessment of what it cost to make those choices to go to war," she said. "Politicians, we assumed, were not going to do that kind of assessment."

The report arrives as Congress debates how to cut a US deficit projected at $1.4 trillion this year, roughly a 10th of which can be attributed to direct war spending.

What did the United States gain for its trillions?

Strategically, the results for the United States are mixed. Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein are dead, but Iraq and Afghanistan are far from stable democracies. Iran has gained influence in the Gulf and the Taliban, though ousted from government, remain a viable military force in Afghanistan.

"The United States has been extremely successful in protecting the homeland," said George Friedman, founder of STRATFOR, a US-based intelligence company.

"Al Qaeda in Afghanistan was capable of mounting very sophisticated, complex, operations on an intercontinental basis. That organization with that capability has not only been substantially reduced, it seems to have been shattered," Friedman said.

Economically, the results are also mixed. War spending may be adding half a percentage point a year to growth in the gross domestic product but that has been more than offset by the negative effects of deficit spending, the report concludes.

America’s wars are forcing Afghans and Iraqis to flee their homes in greater numbers. According to a recent U.N. High Commission for Refugees study, nearly one half of the world’s refugees are from Afghanistan and Iraq, 3.05 million and 1.68 million, respectively. But neither the United States nor much of the developed world bears the burden of the 10.55 million refugees under the UNHCR’s purview globally. Instead, Pakistan, Iran, and Syria serve as the top host countries. The Economist has charted the numbers:

TROPIC OF CHAOS:Climate Change and the New Geography of Violenceby Parenti, Christian.Nation Books, 2011.KIRKUS REVIEWS
An investigative journalist’s tough analysis of how some of the world’s most vulnerable states—those with a history of economic and political disasters—are confronting the new crisis of climate change.The Nation contributing editor Parenti (Lockdown America, 2008, etc.) focuses on the region of the planet that lies between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. He expects nations in this area to face a catastrophic convergence of poverty, violence and climate change—hence the label “Tropic of Chaos.” The danger he foresees is that the reaction of the United States and other developed countries to this disaster may be to become “armed lifeboats” with militarized borders and aggressive anti-immigration policies. In Parenti’s view, the militarism of the Cold War and America’s economic policies of privatization and deregulation are to blame for pushing many developing countries into political and economic instability. The social effects of climate change in a given country can be neither understood nor planned for, he writes, without knowledge of the country’s history. To remedy this, he offers a grim account of the history of several countries in the Tropic of Chaos, including failed and semi-failed states in Africa, Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Brazil and Mexico, making specific connections between economic history, political violence and climate. Water, he argues, has long been a key driver of conflict, and with climate change bringing extreme weather with droughts and flooding, it will become an even greater issue. The chapter on South America leads directly to his discussion of immigration to the United States, where immigrants are met with “the calumny, hatred, and ideological spittle of rightwing demagogues” like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh. In the final chapter, Parenti offers his ideas for how the United States might respond otherwise.
A dark look at a looming world crisis in which the United States comes off as one of the worst villains.Review From Publishers Weekly
In this scathing study, Parenti (Lockdown America) argues that climate change is already wreaking havoc on the planet in the form of devastating droughts and other weather aberrations that create a shortage of arable land and resources. In the developing world, these challenges intersect with the ongoing crises of poverty and violence to create what Parenti terms a “catastrophic convergence.” Arguing that coming environmental shifts will “act as a radical accelerant,” he describes how cold war militarism and neoliberal economics have eroded community fabric and public services in such disparate places as the arid savannahs of Kenya, the mountains of Afghanistan, the favelas of Brazil, the jungles of Colombia, and the deserts of northern Mexico, opening the door for “socially disruptive forms of adaptation,” like brutality, genocide, and corruption. As the developing world sinks deeper into crisis, the developed world takes the “armed lifeboat” approach, consolidating wealth and firepower while ignoring the rising tide of need among the planet’s most vulnerable citizens. Parenti’s careful reporting and grasp of politics and economics support the book’s urgent message–that impending global chaos is all but assured unless the developed world finds the political will to imagine a better future. (July)Reviewed on: 04/18/2011Range of Views“To read this disturbing, indeed frightening book is to appreciate fully the fix we’re in. On the one hand is a looming planetary crisis, the product of climate change, resource scarcity, and widespread poverty. On the other hand is the misguided conviction, to which Americans in particular cling, that military power, deftly employed, will insulate the developed world from these problems. It won’t, Christian Parenti argues. He’s right. We can’t say we weren’t warned.”—Andrew J. Bacevich, author of Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War“A richly investigated and original account of the role climate change is already playing in contemporary conflicts. This glimpse of the future we most fear arrives just in time to change course.”—Naomi Klein, author of The Shock DoctrineThis important book highlights a new dimension of climate change. It’s not only about the loss of biodiversity, glaciers, and island states, but also about a new era of conflict, violence, and chaos. Parenti shows us how climate change already produces war and aggression. But he also invites us to think about real and structural alternatives to unbridled capitalism and runaway climate change.” —Pablo Salón, Chief Climate Negotiator and Ambassador of Bolivia to the United Nations“Christian Parenti’s exhaustively researched Tropic of Chaos presents a disturbing idea: that the species which caused the climate crisis will be the one most affected by it. This powerful book charts how climate-driven violence is already taking hold. If we don’t act with urgency, a troubled future awaits us.” —Michael Brune, Executive Director, Sierra Club

Dyer, Gwynne.Climate Wars: The Fight for Survival as the World Overheats.Pentagon already has plans for warming wars over food and water.A 1 percent rise in temp will produce 10 percent reduction in food.Several wars are preparing.For example,because Turkey is controlling the Tigris and Euphrates at their sources, Iraq would be at war with that neighbor were Iraq not it so dysfunctional.

WARS AND WARMING

Joseph Romm, author of Hell and High Water.

27 May 2011 08:40 AM PDT. Climate Progress

The three worst direct impacts to humans from our unsustainable use of energy will, I think, be Dust-Bowlification and sea level rise and ocean poisoning:Hell and High Water.But another impact - far more difficult to project quantitatively because there is no paleoclimate analog - may well affect far more people both directly and indirectly: war, conflict, competition for arable and/or habitable land.We will have to work as hard as possible to make sure we don't leave a world of wars to our children. That means avoiding decades if not centuries of strife and conflict from catastrophic climate change. That also means finally ending our addiction to oil, a source - if not the source - of two of our biggest recent wars. As the NYT reported in 2009:

The changing global climate will pose profound strategic challenges to the United States in coming decades, raising the prospect of military intervention to deal with the effects of violent storms, drought, mass migration and pandemics, military and intelligence analysts say.

Such climate-induced crises could topple governments, feed terrorist movements or destabilize entire regions, say the analysts, experts at the Pentagon and intelligence agencies who for the first time are taking a serious look at the national security implications of climate change.. . . .From 350 PPM

Alex Prud’homme.The Ripple Effect.Rev.Newsweek, “Down the Drain” (June 13/20, 2011.)“The next century will be characterized by a ripple of water crises, growing into a tsunami.”Future will possibly be “dominated by a war for water.”

The following is a save-the-date announcement written by Joe Gerson of the American Friends Service Committee for a conference in Washington, DC, which HAW is co-sponsoring along with the AFSC and several other groups. It will take place at American University on Friday evening October 21 and Saturday October 22.

Keynotes by Madame Yan Junqi, Vice President of the Chinese People’s Association for Peace and Disarmament and the Vice Chairperson of the Standing Committee of the Chinese National People’s Congress and by Jae-Jung Suh, Associate Professor and Director of the Korea Studies Program at John Hopkins’ School of Advanced International Studies.* Background and Campaigning Panels and Workshops.

Additional information, including registration, will soon be accessible at www.afsc.org/pes.

Please join us and consider having your organization co-sponsor this uniquely important conference.

Even as the Pentagon has been pursuing its Long War across the Middle East and Central Asia, the campaign to contain China has been driving U.S. strategic war planning and military spending.

Our movements to prevent war and to address the impacts of the militarization of the federal budget are not prepared to the long term designs of the Pentagon, right-wing and the Military-Industrial-Complex to reinforce and deepen U.S. militarism across the Asia-Pacific.

As former U.S. Ambassador to China R. Stapleton Roy put it, “we poked China in the eye” by sending the nuclear powered and nuclear capable aircraft carrier the U.S.S. George Washington into the East China Sea “because we could.”

The U.S. still has more than 100 military bases and installations across Japan. In Korea, activists have engaged in hunger strikes and been jailed for opposing the decimation of their communities with new U.S. military bases. The U.S. now has tacit military alliances with Vietnam and India and is exploring the return of military bases to the Philippines. The National Military Strategy issued in 2010 also calls for expanded military cooperation with Thailand, Malaysia, Pakistan, Indonesia and Singapore.

While the US economy stagnates under the tremendous burden of its military expenditures, China has poured resources into becoming the world’s workshop and building 21st century infrastructures and technologies. As the world’s financial centers tilt towards Beijing, new military spending in the region has increased the complexities of its territorial disputes with Japan and ASEAN nations with competing claims to South China Sea islands. A growing number of militarized “incidents” and violent conflict have also occurred on the Korean Peninsula.

The conference goals are:
· Build our movements’ capacities to understand and respond to these
developments
· Identify and promote campaigns that challenge Asia-Pacific militarism and that advocate meaningful alternatives.
· Facilitate solidarity between U.S. and Asia-Pacific peace movements, advocates and campaigns

In addition to our keynote speakers, panels will be devoted to Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia, and peace movement campaigns

*Madame Yan is confirmed. Professor Suh has been invited. This conference will also serve as the 4th Peace Forum organized by The American Friends Service Committee and the Chinese People’s Association for Peace and Disarmament.

Here is the link to all the newsletters that are archived on the OMNI web site.

Republicans and Democrats are championing bills to further militarize the prosecution of terrorists, beyond anything even President George W. Bush proposed.

They want Americans to believe the legislation will keep the country safer. In fact, these bills could end up tying the hands of FBI agents and other law enforcement officials trying to disrupt terrorist plots. They are likely to deprive prosecutors of their most powerful weapons in bringing terrorists to justice. And they come perilously close to upending the prohibition, which dates back to Reconstruction, against the military's operating as a police force within the United States.

There is no sign that the White House tried to stop the House from passing a particularly awful version of these bills, which would move most, if not all, terrorism cases from civilian courts to military tribunals. And there is no sign the White House tried to stop the Senate Armed Services Committee from approving only a slightly better one.

Democrats on that committee insist they defeated far worse proposals. There are, however, some issues that require an unwavering stand. Preserving the role of law enforcement agencies in stopping and punishing terrorists is one of them. This country is not and should never be a place where the military dispenses justice, other than to its own.

President Obama must push the Democratic leadership to amend the Senate bill - and make it clear that he will veto any bill that turns over proper law enforcement functions to the military.

For decades, terrorism has been prosecuted - with great success - in civilian courts. The Bush team insisted, falsely, that these courts were not tough enough for the war on terrorism and pushed the use of military courts for some "unlawful combatants."

Both the Senate and the House versions of the bills now remove the possibility of civilian trial and mandate military detention and military trial for anyone deemed to be a member of Al Qaeda "or an affiliated entity." Under current political thinking, that means pretty much anyone arrested for carrying out or plotting a terrorist act anywhere. The bills exclude American citizens, and the Senate bill appears to exclude lawful residents of this country, but government lawyers fear that is not clear enough.

The Senate bill allows the secretary of defense to transfer a prisoner to law enforcement custody in consultation with the secretary of state and the director of national intelligence. The likelihood of that happening given current politics is infinitesimal, but more important, it is the statutory job of the attorney general to decide when and how to prosecute federal prisoners. Cutting him out of the process is an effort to turn all terrorism cases into matters of war, not law.

Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. and the Obama team are to blame in part for feeding the political paranoia that led to this pass. Mr. Holder properly decided to try Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and other 9/11 plotters in a federal court in New York, but failed to consult with New York politicians, who scurried for cover and scuttled the prosecution.

The most basic truth - which almost no politician will dare to admit - is that federal court trials work. The military tribunals (which started with Mr. Bush's kangaroo courts and now involve a system that is somewhat more refined but still flawed) have managed to extract a few minor plea deals. They have yet to render a verdict or impose a stiff sentence on a single high-profile terrorist.

Since 9/11, hundreds of prisoners have been convicted of terrorism or related crimes in civilian courts. Federal prosecutors have many more charges they can file against prisoners than military prosecutors do. Sentencing in federal court is by a judge using tough guidelines. Military commissions have no experience handling capital-punishment cases. And many countries will not send a prisoner to the United States if he will face military prosecution.

Government lawyers say some countries will not even provide evidence if it will be used in a military trial. In short, it seems unlikely that a military tribunal could ever hold a trial or impose a sentence that would stand up to American or global democratic values.

The Senate and House bills also could cripple FBI investigations of terrorists and terrorist plots. Lawyers in the Obama administration say that if an agent interrogating a prisoner decided the suspect was a member of Al Qaeda or any "affiliated" group, he would have to stop the questioning, no matter how well it was going, and have the prisoner flown to Guantánamo or a military brig in this country.

The peddlers of fear and the phony tough-on-terrorism crowd have dominated the national security debate for too long. The president must step in and stop this march toward endless war and the perpetual undermining of American constitutional values.

[Significant analysis of war in Afghanistan and President Obama’s feeble plan for withdrawal.D]

“Bad News for a Country Tired of War “

Barack Obama’s plan for a limited withdrawal from Afghanistan means tens of thousands of American troops will remain there, many of them fighting, for several years to come.

In his speech Wednesday night, the president announced he will reduce the U.S. fighting force in Afghanistan by 10,000 by the end of this year and a total of 33,000 by September 2012. After that, he said, “our troops will be coming home at a steady pace as Afghan security forces move into the lead. Our mission will change from combat to support. By 2014, this process of transition will be complete. …”

Nowhere did he pledge that all the personnel would be brought home by that 2014 date.

Nor did he mention that 68,000 service personnel will remain in Afghanistan after September 2012. In addition, according to the Congressional Research Office, 18,919 “private security contractors” working for the Defense Department will also be serving in Afghanistan, performing duties seemingly indistinguishable from those done by American military personnel.

That means that after the pullout more than 86,000 personnel will remain engaged in fighting or the vague “support” duties cited by the president. They will add to the human and economic toll of a war that has killed, according to the website iCasualties, 1,632 American troops and wounded 11,191. The financial cost is now more than $426 billion. With the Iraq War added in, the figure reaches $1.2 trillion.

Although Obama’s speech was no cause for celebration, there were some pluses. The troop reduction was more substantial than the much smaller cuts advocated by outgoing Defense Secretary Robert Gates and the military command. Obama said the United States would negotiate with the Taliban if they “break from al-Qaida, abandon violence and abide by the Afghan constitution.” It’s doubtful that these conditions can be met, especially given the Taliban’s opposition to equal rights for women, part of the Afghan constitution. But at least we may be at the table with them.

Obama had a positive but not triumphal tone, saying the United States “is starting this drawdown from a position of strength.”

Actually, he is starting it from a position of weakness.

Although the war has been pretty much ignored by cable news and much of the rest of the mainstream media, apparently the American people have a different view.

OMNI NEWSLETTER #1 ON NATIONALISM, Compiled by Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace
See: Ethnocentrism, Identity, Imperialism, Jingoism, Militarism, National Security State, Patriotism, Permanent War, Preemptive Invasion, Torture, Xenophobia
These assessments of nationalism should be read by people of all nations. I’ll add that degrees of self-regarding nationalism exist, from US hyper-nationalism to Danish low-key cultural pride. An essential exploration of US nationalism is American Exceptionalism and Human Rights, ed. Michael Ignatieff. All of Noam Chomsky’s books that discuss US foreign policy elaborate the subject. See criticism of the US National Security State, which leads to examination of US wars and a host of related subjects. Dick
Contents
Koenigsberg: National Right to Kill?
Mystical Nationalism: The King's Two Bodies by Ernst Kantorowicz
Americentrism
White Nationalism
Economic Nationalism: Imperialism

WHY WARS, WHY MASS SLAUGHTER?
Nations Have the Right to Kill: Hitler the Holocaust and War
By Richard Koenigsberg
From Intro.: …..But what if destruction and self-destruction are the fundamental purpose of warfare? This is the conclusion that I have reached. More precisely, perhaps warfare is undertaken as a form of sacrifice—a gigantic potlatch—whereby human beings give over their bodies and possessions to objects of worship with names like France, Germany, Japan, America, etc.
We would prefer not to know that this is the case. We still exist within the heart of the storm. Nationalism is a living religion, so powerful that we barely conceive of it as a religion. Yet Carolyn Marvin in her ground-breaking Blood Sacrifice and the Nation (1999) develops a theory similar to the one I present in this book. She shows how warfare and sacrifice function to support and sustain the idea of the nation.
I explore this idea in Chapter III of this book, “As the Soldier Dies, So the Nation Comes Alive,” as well as in Chapter V, in which I examine parallels between the First World War and the Aztec performance of warfare as a ritual sacrifice. Are we in the Western World similar to the Aztecs in that we sacrifice human beings in the name of our Gods?
Sadly, it would appear that this is the case. The difference is that the Aztecs were aware that warfare was a sacrificial ritual, whereas we in the West are not yet aware of this. One objective of this book is to help us to become conscious of the central role of sacrifice in our political rituals.
Marvin writes about blood sacrifice in war as the “totem secret.” The fact that nations create warfare as a sacrificial ritual is something that we are not supposed to know. Indeed, we don’t wish to know that this is the case. What would it mean if people were to become aware that warfare is an institution whose purpose is to sacrifice—or kill—people?
Hitler nearly understood this. He realized that nations have the right to kill. The purpose of this book is to provide documentation showing how nations act in the name of killing or sacrificing people. We understand that nations have the right to kill, but assume there are specific reasons why states find it necessary to go to war.
But what if it turns out that the production of sacrificial violence and victims is an essential function of the nation-state? What if wars are waged not for specific reasons, rather in order to produce opportunities for killing and dying? What if it turns out that killing (producing sacrificial victims) is one of the fundamental purposes of collective acts of violence? If we become capable of knowing this, will it make a difference?

DYING AND KILLING FOR LOVE
Lecture by Richard A. Koenigsberg, Ph. D.

Co-sponsored by the National Psychological Association for Psychoanalysis (NPAP) and the Philosophy Department of the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research
Moderator, Mathias Beier. Discussant, Sy Coopersmith
Friday, January 11, 2008, 8 PM
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What is the nature of the human attraction to warfare? What psychological processes transform killing, destruction and the maiming of human bodies into a good thing? War is conceived as a good thing because people die and kill in the name a beloved object, one's nation. . . .
According to the ideology of warfare, bad things (killing, destruction and the maiming of human bodies) become good things because they are undertaken in the name one's beloved nation and its sacred ideals. Collective forms of violence articulate the project or shared fantasy of sacrificing human beings in the name of entities or ideas conceived as greater than the self.
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Richard Koenigsberg received his Ph.D. in Social Psychology from the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research and formerly taught at the New School. INFORMATION AGE PUBLISHING recently released new editions of his books: Hitler's Ideology: Embodied Metaphor, Ideology and History; The Nation: A Study in Ideology and Fantasy; and The Fantasy of Oneness and the Struggle to Separate: A Study in the Psychology of Culture.

oanderson@ideologiesofwar.com
CIVILIZATION AND THE FANTASY OF IMMORTALITY:
Review by Richard A. Koenigsberg of The King's Two Bodies by Ernst Kantorowicz (Princeton UP, paperback)

Ernst Kantorowicz was a historian of political and intellectual history who taught at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, where he published his masterpiece, The King’s Two Bodies.

“Kantorowicz’s bookóone of the most significant titles ever published on political theoryótraces the nation-state or body politic to the mystical body of the church. The author shows how the idea of death on the battlefieldódying for one’s countryódescended from Christian martyrdom. Though we imagine we live in a secular society, we still are immersed within a mystical body. As once we sought immortality through Christianity, now civilization’s dream of eternal life is bound to the idea of the nation. We identify our own bodies with this omnipotent entity. We die and kill in defense of our dream of eternal life.”
The King’s Two Bodies is available now through Amazon.com at special, discounted rates. We urge you to obtain a copy of this classic workóthat reveals the fundamental structure of Western political thought.

For information on how to the paperback edition, PLEASE CLICK HERE.

Read at no charge: Excerpts from
THE KING'S TWO BODIES

In The King’s Two Bodies (1957), Ernst Kantorowicz describes a profound transformation in the concept of political authority that occurred over the course of the Middle Ages. Kantorowicz found in Edmund Plowden’s reports (1571)óa collection of law cases written under Queen Elizabeth Ióthe first clear elaboration of “that mystical talk with which the English crown jurists enveloped and trimmed their definitions of kingship and royal capacities.” The following discussion of the “King’s Two Bodies” is based on Kantorowicz’s presentation and analysis of Plowden’s reports.
The King, Plowden says, has two bodies: “a Body Natural and a Body Politic.” The King’s Body Natural is his mortal body, subject to “all infirmities come by nature or accident,” the “imbecility of infancy or old age,” and the “defects that happen to the natural bodies of all people.” In short, it is the biological body that the King has in common with each of usóa body that ages and eventually dies.
However, the King also has a Second Body, a Body Politic. This bodyóthat “cannot be seen or handled” is “utterly void of old age and other natural defects and imbecilities” to which the Body Natural is subject. The King’s Second Body, in other words, is invulnerable, immortal and “cannot be invalidated or frustrated by any disability in his natural body.”
Still, his Body Natural is not “distinct or divided” from his Body Politic. Rather, the King’s Body Natural and Body Politic are “together indivisible.” The two bodies are “incorporated in one person.” The body corporate is contained within the Body Natural; and the Body Natural within the body corporate. The King’s Two Bodies thus form “one unit indivisible, each fully contained in the other.”
Yet, Plowden explains, while the King’s two bodies form an indivisible unity, no doubt can arise regarding the “superiority of the Body Politic over the Body Natural.” Not only is the Body Politic “more ample and large than the Body Natural,” but in the Body Politic dwell certain “truly mysterious forces which reduce, or even remove, the imperfections of the fragile human nature.” Although the King contains within himself two bodiesóone and indivisibleóthe Body Politic is the greater of the two.
To comment on Koenigsberg’s review essay, please click here.

This Body Politic draws the King’s Body Natural into itself, altering the latter. The Body Politic “takes away the imbecility of the Body Natural.” When the Body Natural fuses with the Body Politicówhen these two bodies uniteóthe Body Politic acts to “wipe away every imperfection” of the Body Natural. By merging with the Body Politic, one’s natural body is transformed into an omnipotent body.
The King’s Body Natural (like other human beings’) is subject to passions and deathóbut not when it is united with his Second Body. For as his Body Politic, “the King never dies.” When a King dies, his Second Body is “transferred and conveyed over from the Body Natural now dead to another Body Natural.” In short: “The King is deadólong live the King.”
The idea of the King’s Second Body has profound implications for our understanding of the human being’s relationship to civilization. The King’s Second Body, I suggest, symbolizes culture itself, that which (as Anthropology and Sociology texts used to say) “lives on.” The Second Body of the kingóthe Body Politicóis culture: that part of human beings which endures even while individuals pass away.
Social theorists typically view the self as created and shaped by culture. However, we may also view culture as the creation of the self. I propose the idea of culture as a double of the self: the King’s Second Body; fantasy of an immortal self bound to our mortal selves. We project our bodies into the symbolic order. We create and nurture cultural objects that symbolize our Bodies. Culture thus constitutes the Second Body of the King: the fantasy of an immortal, self-perpetuating body not subject to death or decay.
Egyptian pyramids mark the beginning of Western civilization. Well before the Middle Ages, Kings were conceived as partaking of immortality. A pyramid was the Pharaoh’s Body Politic: his immortal body that transcended his natural body. Egyptians believed that the Pharaoh could live foreverówithin a massive structure that contained and symbolized his body. Pyramids constituted a double of the Pharaoh’s self: the King’s Second Body.
The Pyramids were the result of hundreds of thousands of hours of labor and the expenditure of enormous wealth. Human energies were poured into building these gigantic structuresóthat had no practical value whatsoever. Civilizations begin with the fantasy of immortalityóprojected into monumental creations that stand as a double of the self. Monumental structures such as the pyramids embody the fantasy of living on even as our actual bodies die.
To comment on Koenigsberg’s review essay, please click here.

Each of us is like a King or Pharaoh: we project our bodiesóour life energiesóinto the creation of cultural objects which, we imagine, will live on even though we are fated to die. Cultural objects are the Second Body of the King: symbolizing a body (politic) not subject to death or decay; the superorganic; that which transcends the lives of individuals and lives on.
Nations function like the Second Body of the King. One’s nation is a double of one’s self: a larger, “more ample” body with which we identify. Our nation is a Body Politic that seems more powerful than our actual body. We identify with a nation as if it were our own body. We project our bodies into a Body Politic. We wage war in the name of our nation to defend the fantasy of an omnipotent body that will live forever.
Whatever theories scholars put forth, we nevertheless exist: each human being lives within his or her biological body. In order to escape one’s biological body (and the death that it contains), we identify with nations, cultures and the symbolic order. The Body Politicóour Second Bodyóis conceived as an omnipotent body that will wash away weakness, defect and death.
We seek to bind our actual body to this symbolic body: The King is dead, long live the King. Or as the song from a James Bond movie puts it: “You only live twice: one life for yourself and one for your dreams.” Our life in culture is a dream life: the projection of a fantasy. Our actual bodies are small, frail and vulnerable. The Body Politic is large and apparently invulnerable. What’s more, the national body seems to contain “everything” within itself. We want it all, and we want it all forever. We project our beings into this dream body.
The “split subject” is a human being that exists in two places; two dimensions of reality. On the one hand, we exist in a concrete place and time. On the other hand, we are “spirited away” by the symbolic order. We identify our existence with another dimension of realityónone other than “culture” itself: a world that seems to exist “out there,” separate from us and moving eternally through time and space like a film that never ends.
We want to be part of this never-ending movie. We would prefer to be a character in itóa Queen or King ourselves (“Fame, I want to live forever, baby remember my name”). If this is not possible, we link ourselves to individuals who seem to be part of the Body Politic; to exist within it. Famous peopleóthose who are written up in history booksóare like bodies contained within the Body Politic: part of the cellular structure of a nation.
The immortal bodies with which we connect may be sports figures (Babe Ruth or Lou Gehrig), singers (Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley or Michael Jackson), movie stars (James Dean or Marilyn Monroe), political figures (John F. Kennedy or Lee Harvey Oswald), scientists (Albert Einstein), or academic heroes (Lacan). Each is dead, yet we experience them as if they still exist: they constitute the Second Body of the King.
Human beings pour their life-energies into the creation of cultural objectsósymbols of our own bodiesóthat we hope will become elements of culture: fusing with the Body Politic. In this sense, the pyramids represent a paradigm for how human beings connect or relate to civilization. Pyramids symbolize our aspiration to create, preserve and identify with “permanent” objects. A poem by the baseball umpire Grantland Rice concludes: “For all men die, but the Record lives.”
To create a cultural object is to create a double of the self: a symbol of one’s body that makes its way intoófinds a place inóthe external world. One pours one’s energies into the creation of an object which, one hopes, will continue to exist after one dies. One dreams that one’s own body will be preserved within one’s creation. The created object (a Beethoven sonata, a Picasso painting) is the Second Body of the King.
One may create and produce a “book,” hoping it will rest on the shelves of a library, snuggled next to the other symbolic bodies. If a book becomes a “classic” (part of the canon), we imagine that this entity will survive forever. Huckleberry Finn will live forever, as will its author, Mark Twain. Catcher in the Rye will live on, as will J. D. Salinger. Though Salinger hid himself away through his lifetime, his Second Body is seen, touched, held and read by millions.
Perhaps the fundamental fantasy sustaining civilization is the idea that human beings exist inóare preserved withinóthe cultural objects they create. We imagine that the created object is the Second Body of the King: a body without defect, subject to neither decay nor death. One’s life may revolve around the fantasy of fashioning an immortal object containing one’s self. We imagine that a “piece” of our body will continue to exist, contained within and preserved by the cultural object one has created.
Today, mass media functions as the Second Body of the King. We possess our own lives, but also possess another: the life we lead by virtue of identifying with events and people “brought to us” by television, radio, the Internet, movies, etc. For some, this world constitutes reality itself.
Do we exist where we areóor “out there”? Do we identify with our concrete existence, or with significant events and famous people that are quite distant from our lives. It is common and ordinary for people to bind their lives to Another World (the title of a television soap opera). This other world seems to contain abundance and infinite possibilities. What’s more, this other world keeps moving on endlessly. When one anchorwoman leaves the show, another takes her place: The Queen is dead, long live the Queen.
What are the consequences of identifying so deeply with the cultural world? I’ve been discussing this tendency as if it’s a benign fantasy. However, there is a profound price to be paid. Norman O. Brown states that the essence of sublimation is the “reification of the superfluous sacred into monumental, enduring form.” Using the pyramids as a paradigm, Brown suggests that sexual energies are siphoned off for the purpose of creating sacred structures that exist solely to materialize fantasies of immortality. Death is overcome, Brown says, on condition that the “real actuality of life pass into these immortal and dead things.”
According to Plowden, there is no doubt that the Body Politic is superior to the Body Natural. Hitler explained to his people: “You are nothing, your nation is everything.” Lacanians often claim: “There is no other but the Other.” What happens when a Body Politic with which an individual identifies overwhelms his or her actual body? What is the price we pay in order to sustain our belief that we possess a second, immortal body?
To comment on Koenigsberg’s review essay, please click here.

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Americentrism
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Americentrism is a term referring to the ethnocentric and xenophobic practice of viewing the world from an explicitly American perspective, with an implied belief, either consciously or subconsciously, in the preeminence of American (and, more generally, of Western) culture.[1]
Among others, U.S. broadcasting networks[2] and U.S. celebrities such as Quentin Tarantino[3] have been accused of being Americentric.
See also
• American exceptionalism
• Manifest Destiny
Geocultural perspectives:
• Afrocentrism
• Eurocentrism
• Sinocentrism
Notes
1. ^ NI, Chun-yan. (2008). Analysis of ethnocentrism. US-China Foreign Language, 6 (2), 78. Retrieved March 20, 2009 from http://www.linguist.org.cn/doc/uc200803/uc20080316.pdf.
2. ^ http://www.salon.com/news/sports/col/kaufman/2004/08/20/friday
3. ^ http://archive.sensesofcinema.com/contents/festivals/04/32/udine2004.html

Nationalism and Color
The New White Nationalism in America: its challenge to integration by Carol Miller Swain CambridgeUP, 2002 - Social Science - 526 pages
Over the past ten years, a new white nationalist movement has gained strength in America, bringing with it the potential to disrupt already fragile race relations. Eschewing violence, this movement seeks to expand its influence mainly through argument and persuasion directed at its target audience of white Americans aggrieved over racial double standards, race-based affirmative action policies, high black-on-white crime rates, and liberal immigration policies. The movement has also been energized, Swain contends, by minority advocacy of multiculturalism. Due to its emphasis on group self-determination, multiculturalism has provided white nationalists with justification for advocating a parallel form of white solidarity. In addition, as Swain illustrates, technological advances such as the Internet have made it easier than ever before for white nationalists to reach a more mainstream audience. Swain's study is intended as a wake-up call to all Americans who cherish the Civil Rights Era vision of an integrated America, a common humanity, and equality before God and the law.
More http://books.google.com/books/about/The_new_white_nationalism_in_America.html?id=HB1wyFPRGm4C

Nationalism and Economics
International Socialist Review Issue 7, Spring 1999
“U. S. Imperialism: A Century of Slaughter” By Lance Selfa
THIS YEAR marks the 100th anniversary of the emergence of the U.S. as a major world power. Under the pretext of responding to a bombing on the USS Maine anchored in Havana, Cuba, the U.S. went to war with Cuba's colonial overlord, Spain, in 1899. After routing Europe's weakest colonial power, the U.S. made off with all of Spain's colonial possessions in Latin America and Asia, seizing control of Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines.
The Spanish-American War marked the entrance of the U.S. into the worldwide scramble for colonies among the advanced powers. Novelist Mark Twain made no bones about what this meant:
How our hearts burned with indignation against the atrocious Spaniards. . .But when the smoke was over, the dead buried and the cost of the war came back to the people in an increase in the price of commodities and rent--that is, when we sobered up from our patriotic spree--it suddenly dawned on us that the cause of the Spanish-American war was the price of sugar. . . . that the lives, blood, and money of the American people were used to protect the interests of American capitalists.
A century later, the U.S. stands alone as the world's superpower. It is the only country with the ability to go to war anywhere in the world.
The U.S. attained its position of dominance through competition with other powerful nations. The U.S. and the world's other major powers--Britain, Russia, China, France and Germany--fought two world wars, threatened each other with nuclear annihilation and divided and redivided the world between them.
How can we explain this madness?
It is important to understand that wars and violence stem not from the whims of politicians but from the nature of the system itself. Capitalism is based on the exploitation of the vast majority of the world's population by a small minority who own and control all the resources. A recent United Nations (UN) study showed that all of the world's poor could be lifted out of poverty by spending the wealth of the world's seven richest billionaires.
At the heart of a system which produces this kind of obscene inequality is ruthless competition between corporations constantly on the lookout for new ways to make profits. The process of competition forces capitalists to look beyond their own national boundaries to gain access to new and cheap raw materials and workers.
More http://www.isreview.org/issues/07/century_of_slaughter.shtml